This is a bit surprising, to be honest. There should not be a way in any serious league or federation out there to skip tiers. It doesn't matter if the Second or Third Bundesliga are non-professional and the respective applicant declares professional ambitions. We know of exceptions, of course, but I hope this is all they will remain - just exceptions. If the club's ambitions are serious, promotion should be a matter of time only. You know I would be glad to watch again some serious volleyball as close to Munich as possible (Herrsching kind of counts, of course) but it shouldn't be at the expense of Second Bundesliga teams. Now, if no one wants a promotion because no one can fulfill the requirements, this would be a different story.

And this is exactly what happened.As by todays news, no team of second division applied for a Bundesliga license. Winners of second leagues North/South were CV Mitteldeutschland and Eltmann but both refused, referring to lack of money and high requirements by VBL.

So of course, Haching won't take a place of a qualified second division team. With the introduction of the wildcard, it was said by the VBL that a wildcard would only be granted to fill up the league and of course not at the expense of a second division team.

That being said, they are the best team in that 3. Liga and will win it, but I can't say for sure they won't have problems in the Second Bundesliga. They need some new signings if they want to do well there or even more serious ones if they earn the right to play professionally in the end.

It could become a bit delicate with Herrsching, as they might battle for the same players.....

Friedrichshafen is the first finalist after beating Düren twice in a, more or less, convincingly fashion.

The series between Berlin and United Volleys will go into a decisive third match, after United Volleys beat Berlin yesterday 3:1 (stats) in Frankfurt.

It wasn't the first tight match between both team but finally United Volleys could win the close sets, something they regularly failed to do in the matches prior to this one. Berlin's CL distraction and travels might have helped United Volley here. Very good match by Jan Klocucar, who, after getting rid of his protection mask, could help Dünnes a lot in attack. Great numbers for the MBs too. If he can repeat such a performance, the third match in Berlin could become interesting.

As some news sources are reporting, the austrian club Hypo Tirol is said to stand behind the wild card application of Unterhaching. They haven't applied to play in austrian league yet and in the past there had been conflicts between the clubs sponsor and the leagues sponsor (both banks). In a kind of cooperation a large part of tirol's team might move to unterhaching and home matches could be played in Haching and Innsbruck. But there is no official confirmation yet.

The series between Berlin and United Volleys will go into a decisive third match,

Berlin prevailed in five sets ( stats ) and joins Friedrichshafen for the final series.

Over large parts, this was a really good match so generally saying: "Hats Off" to United Volleys. But there is reason to be angry for them too. They should have won the first two sets as Berlin struggled a lot and had to bring three subs early in the match (Marshall, ter Maat, Kühner). These changes and the better performances of Berlin MBs (Okolic!) were probably the key for winning this match.
It was a great last match for Christian Dünnes, who will become sports director of german volleyball federation after this season. His loss and possible departures of other players (Zimmermann, Klobucar, Reichert?) will force United Volleys to rebuild the squad, so off season should become interesting for them.

Berlin was playing as if they had to spend their last strength against Frankfurt.
They were looking totally exhausted.
This could not be the team that beat Dynamo Moscow twice, could it ?

They best they can do for Rome now is to take a rest and push the reset buttons in their brains.

Yes, quite disappointing performance by Berlin, even if you take their tough schedule and the travels into consideration.

But credit where credit is due, VfB didn't allow much yesterday too. Unlike Berlin, their bench worked perfectly, almost every player who entered had a positive impact on the match. For Berlin it is 0/5 now against Friedrichshafen this season

Berlin solved the gordian knot and won the first match this season against VfB in the last possible moment (stats ). So we will have a deciding match on Sunday, 14.30 CET. Felix Fischer in his farewell speech to the audience: "We will win this f*cking game!"

I admit, that somewhere after 4th defeat or so, i gave up writing before the matches things like: "Berlin should win this, better quality bla bla".....

Heynen squeezed his team like a lemon but in the end it was not enough in the most important matches of the season. But still, they did better than expected before the season and transfers like Collin and Boladz let me assume that they might be even better next year.

In Berlin, of course, everyone is happy now but a lot of people are emphasizing how difficult the season has been off the court. I think, getting better there would start with Niroomand skipping some interviews/public statements on team and coach.

I won't make deeper analyze on the season, as i am mostly talking to myself here anyway, but still i want to point out how well a lot of young german players did this season. Reichert, Schott, Sossenheimer, Krick, Kocian, Karlitzek all considerably improved and were main figures and starters in their clubs. I really do hope that this will become a trend....

Yeah, sorry that there was not much participation going on, I didn't have much time to follow the Bundesliga this season either, to be honest. I mostly watched Friedrichshafen and Berlin's CL campaigns and not many of their Bundesliga matches, excluding the first of VfB's wins against Berlin. Even the Cup final, a spectacular match from what I read, has been downloaded and is still waiting for me to catch up

However, one could still see this year's true Berlin RV in the Champions League. Carroll, I believe, had a fluctuating season with a slow start (but was good towards the season's closure) and recruiting a decent opposite like ter Maat was a very necessary step not only in terms of tactics but also with respect to squad depth. It hasn't always been the case for Berlin to have a good bench and I think this season they did a great selection in that direction. Also, what I have mentioned already, Berlin finally reached the F4 in the regular way, something that even Lebedew, despite winning bronze at home, couldn't achieve. Hence, Serniotti deserves special credit and some recognition for his work, not the criticism he has obviously been receiving. Where Berlin surely progressed the most was in defence, of course, and it could be easily seen, some serious work had been done. Well, Kromm still looks like a guy out of that system, especially when digging, mostly felt in Rome (let's be fair, they faced a very dominant Zenit, so no criticism intended), but the average improvement was there to be seen. However, let's not neglect the fact that it was Lebedew who, in fact, set the foundations of this project and team. So Serniotti didn't really start from scratch. But Berlin got upgraded under his command and he surely deserves a better work environment.

I couldn't follow many players this season, as I said, but I was impressed by Ruben Schott's performance this year, especially in 2017. The guy is there mostly as a defensive OH, does a decent job as a receiver and could still be very efficient in attack. True, he may not have made the best numbers in Rome, but there was much more in his games than numbers, including finishing some very tough balls against the Russian block.

Also, even if most of us agree on Serniotti's positive role, we have to say that he made mistakes at the end of that infamous second set in the semifinal when Berlin lost their advantage. His subs were unsuccessful, to say the least.

And yet, Berlin seemed way behind VfB in the Bundesliga. Heynen didn't enjoy a good European campaign, quite the opposite could be said about Serniotti. I refused to believe that the difference between the two teams was so big and that when previous and much better teams of VfB failed to win the title, this specific one would do it. I guess logic prevailed in the end, not without a tremendous amount of luck for Serniotti to beat Heynen in the last possible moment.

However, one could still see this year's true Berlin RV in the Champions League. Carroll, I believe, had a fluctuating season with a slow start (but was good towards the season's closure) and recruiting a decent opposite like ter Maat was a very necessary step not only in terms of tactics but also with respect to squad depth. It hasn't always been the case for Berlin to have a good bench and I think this season they did a great selection in that direction. Also, what I have mentioned already, Berlin finally reached the F4 in the regular way, something that even Lebedew, despite winning bronze at home, couldn't achieve. Hence, Serniotti deserves special credit and some recognition for his work, not the criticism he has obviously been receiving. Where Berlin surely progressed the most was in defence, of course, and it could be easily seen, some serious work had been done.

I don't think they were really shabby in this department before. But generally, i agree that an improvement was visible. Credit goes to Serniotti but its surely easier to play a balanced defence system with players like Marshall/Schott than, lets say, Paul Lotman. A mention deserves as well libero Luke Perry who has played on very high level throughout the whole season and almost made forgotten Erik Shoji !

I couldn't follow many players this season, as I said, but I was impressed by Ruben Schott's performance this year, especially in 2017. The guy is there mostly as a defensive OH, does a decent job as a receiver and could still be very efficient in attack. True, he may not have made the best numbers in Rome, but there was much more in his games than numbers, including finishing some very tough balls against the Russian block.

I admit, i have been often a bit sceptical on his overall possibilies as a player, but he really made a strong case for himself this season. He was probably MVP for the tast two matches and had decent performances in CL. Still he is cashing in too many aces, especially on floats, but thats something you can work on......

My personal conclusion of the season in short.
For Solingen to be ranked even behind VCO (the junior national team missing its strongest player - Krick) is ashaming.
In Rottenburg there was a different lineup nearly every match. without Karlitzek they will definitely struggle.Netzhoppers KW had Andrae and nothing else. There is no development in this club for years. One cannot see what's their goal.Bühl's performance was far behind expectations, also due to a high frequency of injuries. This can't be a players problem only.Herrsching was the surprise of the medium teams. Their highlights were the defeat Düren of away in the cup semis and taking points 2 times from Friedrichshafen.
I was expecting Lüneburg to be closer to the 3rd than the 6th place, but I was wrong. In my opinion they were lacking the spritit of a good setter.Düren is still a (negative) phenomenon to me. 3rd biggest budget of the league, but they by far can't compete for the 3rd place.
The CEV semis were the highlights for Frankfurt this season. But now the team is breaking apart, not only because of Christian Dünnes' career end.

Friedrichshafen ths season showed, that a good coach can make the difference. There were no well known players except Tischer and Steuerwald and they nearly became champion. And along the way Vital Heynen tries to modernize the "old dame" Friedrichshafen.

In January Roberto Serniotti was ready to be kicked as the coach of Berlin. After that he led his team to the CL final 4 and to championship.
But from the volleyball perspective, Berlin to me is a champion without glamour (but they deserved it).

Positive players:
Krick: even though his father built a team around hin, I think the next season will be his last in Germany. He is becoming too strong.
Reichert: will soon be one of the best OH in Germany. His reception and extreme cross swing are very good.
Sossenheimer: he will go his way. He jumping abilities and his situation overview help him a lot.
Strohbach: also a future player, was revived by Herrsching but still lacks the coolness in tough situations. He has to go abroad to improve.

EDIT: Above there are three OH and one MB. I'm desperately missing young talents on the setter and opposite positions.

Comments ? (there is so much mor to write, but ...)

This post has been edited 2 times, last edit by "Bayer" (May 14th 2017, 2:18pm)

In Rottenburg there was a different lineup nearly every match. without Karlitzek they will definitely struggle.

I really wish they could somehow generate a bit more money and make more investments in the team and coach. There is really good Volleyball culture in the city and they usually have good attendances. So, apart from the econimal point, there really is good potential to build upon....

I was expecting Lüneburg to be closer to the 3rd than the 6th place, but I was wrong. In my opinion they were lacking the spritit of a good setter.

For me, Lüneburg slightly exceeded my expectations. They had a good starting 7, but almost nothing coming from the bench. Overall, they were really lucky that they could play almost whole season with same MBs and OHs. Cody "Air" Kessel was a joy to watch and I'm glad, that he will come back to Lüneburg next year. We probably won't see again Michael Brinkley (L) again who, i think, performed below expectations.

Talking about the setter, i think Adam Kocian did reasonably well and showed good improvement. Of course, it can always be better but imho, working with him is absolutely worth the effort. In some aspects, i even like him better than Jan Zimmermann. Sure, at times, he still needs to coordinate better his ideas with his technical capacities but he is young and imho can only get better....

never mess with your setter......

This post has been edited 1 times, last edit by "TimHH" (May 15th 2017, 2:09pm)